My Adventure Story
Lake Anna is a 13,000 acre reservior that lies 72 miles south of the nation's capital and is located in central Virginia in the counties of Louisa, Spotslvania and Orange.
The sprawling 17 mile long lake was created in 1968 when Virginia Dominion Power purchased 18,000 acres of farmland and built a dam on the North Anna River. During the following 4 years the dam was built and the timber was cleared. It was thought that it would take 3 years for the lake to form but with the help of Hurricane Agnes, Anna was at full pool in 11 months. One of Virginia's finest trophy fisheries soon developed.
One of Anna's finest guides, C. C. McCotter, has been guiding on the lake for 16 years and came highly recommended from the local tackle shop.
We were met by a heavy frost and thick fog the morning of the 29th. After loading our gear we spent the first hour of the morning sitting right in front of High Point Marina waiting for the fog to lift. Even though we were only a stones throw from the bridge that crosses the lake we couldn't see the trucks that rumbled slowly across.
While sitting in the fog and vertical jigging a blade bait in 40 feet of water I landed my first Lake Anna striper. It was the first of many that would come over the side of McCotter's Nitro during the day.
The fog soon lifted and we ran uplake just in time to catch the tail-end of the morning striper bite. We landed several before the school dispersed leaving us wondering what could have been if it weren't for the fog.
The sun, coupled with the blue- bird sky, sent the stripers deep and us on a boat ride. We traveled down- lake looking for some active fish but didn't find any but fortunately for us clouds were on the horizon.
Around 1:00 P.M. the clouds covered the sun and the striper bite was on! Swim-baits, flukes, mirrorlures...it didn't matter, the stripers were hungry and several times both "Fernpod" and myself had fish on at the same time.
The darker it got, the more aggressive the fish became. Several nice largemouth even joined the party! All too soon, the day was done and C.C. took us on a short ride back to the marina where we posed with our catch.
C.C. McCotter can be reached at 540-894-9144
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